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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Congress to investigate Planned Parenthood?

From LifeNews.com:

A Congressional committee has taken the first steps in investigating the Planned Parenthood abortion business over abuses ranging from financial disparities to its compliance with federal regulations on taxpayer funding to concerns that it is covering up cases of sex trafficking.

In a September 15 letter LifeNews.com obtained, Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Florida Republican who is the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations, writes to Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood.

“Pursuant to Rules X and XI of the United States House of Representatives, the Committee on Energy and Commerce is examining the institutional practices and policies of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) and its affiliates, and its handing of federal funding,” Stearns writes. “That Committee has questions about the politics in place and actions undertaken by PPFA and its affiliates relating to its use of federal funding and its compliance with federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.”

The letter asks Richards to comply with current federal regulations and legal obligations by providing Congress with a wide range of documents within two weeks of the date of the letter.

“Please provide all internal audit reports conducted by PPFA and its affiliates from 1998 to 2010. If not clearly indicated in the audit reports, please detail how much PPFA and each affiliate expended and received in Title XIX Medicaid funding, Title X family planning, and any other federal funding,” the letter says.

Read the entire Life News report. Of course, you can expect that if there is a Congressional investigation, Planned Barrenhood will be given every sort of cover, aid and encouragement possible by those living and working in Media Land. As Michael New summarily notes in the opening sentence of an NRO post, "Tracking the Times’s Commentary on Sanctity of Life Issues", the "mainstream media typically offers little in the way of interesting commentary on sanctity of life issues." He continues:

Sunday’s New York Timeseditorial by Dorothy Samuels, a member of The New York Times editorial board and former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, is certainly no exception. The whole commentary reads like a NARAL or Planned Parenthood press release. Throughout the editorial Samuels bemoans the incremental progress that pro-lifers have made at both state and federal level and encourages supporters of legal abortion to become more active.